SteelRat70

In the last couple of years, there has been a definite shift in narrative in terms of roles and message. It is no longer deemed acceptable to have a white, male, straight protagonist, unless that character is portrayed as a bit of a failure / joke / doofus or is someway helped out / propped up / corrected / made mostly obsolete by someone female, ethnically or sexually diverse. Better still the white male character would likely be the villain (see Eternals as one of many examples). Whilst in terms of the cinematic representations of Marvel heroes, X-Men have been unsullied by this approach, largely because most of those films were made more than 5 years ago, but even Logan has a tinge of that self same approach as well. There have even been statements by Disney that what they're doing is entirely intentional, and yet what amazes me is that you can't see this and see it as a "yeah it's fine, it's always been like that". No. It. Hasn't. Honestly that level of blindness is not going to be cured by any number of yellow insps.

of course it's nothing new, it's just never been this much of an up to 11, stomach churning onslaught as it is now.

Up to a point that's true. It's far more gratuitous since Disneys take over than before it and Disney do it at every opportunity regardless of whether it has any relevance to the story or not.

I do think there is some superhero fatigue in play. I remember reading a quote from Steven Spielberg that he expected superhero obsession in film and TV to go the same way that westerns did in the 60s and I believe we're starting to see that now, largely (imo) due to the political messages that are regularly the central focus of superhero media, especially coming from Disney. Marvel has had multiple opportunities to use its IP in the video game space and each one has been an abject failure, and now that fatigue with the genre has begun to set in, any push by either of the big two to make a big splash in that space would likely be too little too late.

Defeat all in a council base.. which is also a cave. Double. Whammy.

Oh I think most people understand what the end result of good tanking is, but different people have different ideas on how that is achieved.

Honestly, the commonality here between what you're saying and also what ZemX has been saying is that the central theme is awareness of what the rest of the team is doing and adjusting accordingly. This is the crux of the matter. I'm not saying that is wrong at all (quite the opposite actually!). Those players that don't do that, and will just run off and do what they feel is right regardless of what's going on with the other 7 team members (which they have no clue what's going on with them) are the problem and they're the ones that will generally create the scenario that the OP is talking about. The sad thing is they appear to be (at least from my experience) the rule, rather than the exception.

That's fine.. but that doesn't mean they're right. And this situation rarely existed on live; quite the opposite in fact. The fact that this thread exists should tell you all you need to know about where the game is right now. I think that depends on AT and, believe it or not, I do like / prefer generally soloable ATs like Brutes and Sentinels, so that I can take things at a more relaxed pace, read the story and maybe pick up some background lore, but I also like characters that have a greater dependency on the team dynamic, but are more difficult to play solo - that used to be the case for blasters, low level controllers and the like, but it's not like that any more. Agreed on the preference. Sub light run speed, chilled out chatty-lolz teams are vastly more preferable than the "Must Do Everything As Quickly As Possible" zerg fests, but those seem to be fairly few and far between, sadly. Having said that, largely as a result of the comments in this thread, I'm specifically avoiding those "lvl 54 PI team all levels welcome" teams and seeking out the "level 30 team - no 50s please" ones that occasionally pop up.

It's possible, but unlikely. I never overthink things. Ever. Well mostly. Sometimes. OK. Yes, yes I do.

I'd even go further and have "Insect Melee" (like Savage Melee, but insect themed). Have the Tier 7 or 8 power as "Decapitate". Become a Preying Mantis and bite the head off your foes. (only problem with that is if you executed it and the mob still had some health left - maybe the head only comes off if health reaches zero after the attack, otherwise a 10 second DoT? - "The bite marks cause excessive bleeding damage") (Now I think about it a head biting melee power would also fit into my Guitar Blast secondary set - "Ozzy Manoeuvre")

And for me this is the problem, the factor that blasters are in any way able to do this. Previously that tactic would have resulted in a very swift reminder as to why it's generally inadvisable.

That's because it's far more difficult to screw up the entire show. Behaviour that would have done that no longer does, so there's no incentive to not do things that would; mis targetting and aggroing another group, not paying attention and causing a team split, as two very clear examples. Not sure it's team size that's the issue, but honestly, I'll likely be far choosier on the teams that I do join.

Totally - however both situations require some head-out-of-backside awareness on the part of everyone, particularly those individuals who want to run ahead without thinking about what they're leaving behind (and this of course isn't just limited to Tanks).

Agreed - but again, difficulty or challenge is what generally promotes communication. Certain changes in mechanic have (at least imo) reduced the need for communication and also the consequence of poor team play and / or poor communication (namely frequent individual defeat, or team wipe), so there's little incentive to co-operate fully. Path of least resistance still leads to successful completion.

This. All of it. 100%

I do agree with this; the trouble is the revised exemping system means there's no reason why one or more of those god tier 50s (which, let's face it are in plentyful supply!) doesn't join in to give exactly the same result. Perhaps you're right and this is somewhat controllable with a regular group of people to play with.

Serious question.. how much of that is down to those old school tactics not working any more, and how much of it is down to people forgetting how to do them properly due to being used to full on Jenkins regardless of AT? There have been times, glimpses of co-ordinated awesome where someone (usually the tank) plays like that without feeling the need to rush everything on their own and the rest of the team reads what's happening and everything just clicks in to place. The crazy thing is that those memories we see people talking about with running across the Hollows at level 6 without a travel power and how many times they'd die doing so I personally think was an absolutely superb, albeit rather harsh, lesson in simple things like group aggro ranges. That sort of experience can be tremendously beneficial in so many other areas of the game and yet so few people these days appear to understand it - why? .. because travel powers at level 4, DFB ad nauseum, and very little slapdown for fundamental mistakes.

Good. This is a team game. Want a solo game, play a solo game; don't expect a team game to make soloing easier.

That's actually the very definition of teamwork. Whilst you could argue that "working in the same space to achieve a common goal" is also teamwork, running off to do something else while you leave every one else to clear up your shit is not.

No. Nothing like that. Obviously. Make the game less of a lolzerg cake walk? Just like the live game did? Currently there is no real incentive to work together, so few people do. When was the last time, as a blaster you had to pull mobs from a group to thin the group out a bit, or waited for a tank to corner pull and bunch a group together to make it easier for the /Kin to fs so that the blaster could Nova them to oblivion? Those kinds of scenarios just don't happen any more, so you're left with this group of 8 people soloing on the same map, largely oblivious of what the rest of the team is doing. The only reason people play together in the modern game is because of the XP and inf bonuses associated with doing so. Beyond minimum team requirements for TFs and what you might call "forced group content", there is no other reason to team anymore.

A game mechanic that.. "encourages" more cohesive team play thus negating the need for this role in a team in the first place.

Katana wielding pig called Baco-Foil or a SS / WP Pig brute called "Ham Fisted" Dog themed Ice / Poison Corruptor called Yellow Snow.

Whenever anyone says "GET READY".. for some reason I always think about this:

I agree... and for me, that's not only the sad part but a contributory factor to the live games closure.

heh OK.. guilty as charged.